


|among the scorpion grasses|

by littlekaracan



Series: |by the castles of clonmel| [3]
Category: Ranger's Apprentice - John Flanagan
Genre: Gen, halt o'carrick has feelings, i should use that tag more often, im really sorry it had to be done, im sorry fellas, it's not anything graphic, just a lady in a coffin really, ngl there's mostly angst in this one, tw for descriptions of a corpse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-04
Updated: 2019-04-04
Packaged: 2020-01-04 22:02:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,218
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18352574
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/littlekaracan/pseuds/littlekaracan
Summary: Caitlyn writes a letter. Watching is what a Ranger does best - so Halt watches. Tears are dried, blood is washed off and memories are kept. He could never forget his sister, so, adorned with a flower crown, she smiles until the end of time. There always comes a time to move on, and a time to simply remember.





	|among the scorpion grasses|

**Author's Note:**

> here i am, hoping to invoke Feelings once more!! i hope you enjoy this! because it ate up my mental state like i was a plate of cheerios and it was a stumbling drunkard at 4 in the morning. cheers

It was a carefully planned ceremony. Carefully planned not by the hosts, not by the priests or by the King, but by the young lady being carried in a dark coffin to her eternal resting place.

It was the funeral of a Princess, but not one most of such a status would choose. No prolonged parade, no loud announcements, no public mourning. A crowd had gathered on their own however, following the few people carrying the open coffin, following their lady. Not much could be said about her, humble, adventurous and compassionate - maybe there were many more things, some that could put a stain on her memory, but nobody wanted that. Nobody wanted to tarnish the dead.

And especially not her.

She had been found by her table, a quill in her stiffening hand, eyes open and reddened and too bright and too blue to belong to the living. The letter she had written, however, had been passed to the living. Its contents were not shared, but many knew what it said regardless - word travelled fast, after all.

It said many things, it spoke of her and her brothers and her husband who went before her. It spoke of her parents and her small son, who had remained in his tiny crib and whose tearful screaming had roused the guards and led to the discovery of her body. It spoke of men and women she'd never had a chance to say goodbye to, and that she never will, now.

**_So let this be my last words, not of regret but of acknowledgement - by the Gods I could've done more, I could've prevented hurt and I could've loved harder. But let it be known I moved mountains, I prevented hurt and I loved hard as I was, and nothing can take it away. And the more hurt my grave might bring, the harder I'll love, even if it'll be in death. Take this love, then, and don't forget me._ **

She had always had her way with words, even more so than the King.

The day of her funeral was one of the few days the King walked out of the palace. Every peasant had known their King not to be one of courage, not one to pick himself up and work for anything.

And today, he surprised the kingdom.

Today, he stood in front of the procession, helping lift up his sister's coffin with both hands, and the anguish on his face reminded them that there was still a person in there, albeit arrogant and self-serving and just like every other king Clonmel had seen in its years. Today, however, he was all that and a man mourning his little sister.

**_Please, don't forget me._ **

It was a small coffin. It was a small lady, after all. But it was adorned and decorated with flowers and with jewels, and in that, she had no say, as she already did in where to be laid to rest (by the grave of her missing - dead - brother) and what kind of dress to be in (a blue one, her favourite).

And, by her request, it had been a short walk from the castle. She had been gently lowered down in a bed of flowers, and even though nobody was sure if the flowers were supposed to be there, either, it did not hurt her.

She would not be buried for just a day, allowing for people to keep watch, to come just a step closer and to leave a flower or an adornment of their own, to mourn.

The King was the first to stand by her - of course - and, oddly, he lingered. He clasped her paling hand in his own, and somebody swore they heard him cry, but no one would know for sure. And spreading rumours like that was dangerous.

As he left, hundreds of eyes followed him taking long strides toward his horse. "He'd walked all the way here," somebody muttered sourly, "Why would he take the common folk’s way back too. Of course."

Then, the crowd came alive.

A woman soon walked up to the coffin with her son - and, shyly, he left a daffodil he'd picked on the way by her feet. It was small and yellow, sunny and bright, and no one would care about how mundane it was as long as it was genuine. A young seamstress was next, gently sliding a neat embroidery by her side. A guard with graying hair and beard followed, distant sorrow in his cloudy eyes, and he did not do much more than lay a hand on her forehead as if he was checking a child for a fever and muttering a blessing to safely travel to the other side.

**_Tell Sean that we shared the world. Tell him I don't want to stop sharing it with him when I go._ **

Many followed the four townspeople. Many, many loved her. Most loved her more than they loved the King, and the rest detested the King more than they detested her. Some wanted to leave a gift, some just to utter a prayer, some were simply led by curiosity, having never seen her up close before.

And she was still and ageless in her coffin over the flower bed, eyes closed and fingers intertwined on her stomach. Her young son had not seen her so by her wishes. It had been enough to have his voice be the one to awaken the castle to her death.

The people flocked to her, and, over a few hours, her coffin became a site resembling a temple. Even the children peered over the fence of the graveyard to get a look at their Princess, cold and lifeless and bright in her blue dress.

And every person that approached her, every person that stepped close to lean in to whisper their blessing or to give her their gratitude was followed by a pair of dark eyes. Those were eyes that held no anger or regret either, just a deep pricking hurt. Anguish resembling - perhaps even greater than - that of the King's.

**_My brother knows how much warmth I hold for him. And I'll swear it a hundred times - he knows I love him._ **

The eyes belonged to a man who was clad less so in his gray cloak than in the shadows of the woods beside the graveyard. It is said the restless souls roam there, unable to quench their thirst for bloodshed after death, but he was not bothered by it at all.

No ghosts mattered to him. No ghost could reach into his chest and rip his heart out, as much as he desired it at the moment.

What mattered was the coffin and the countless people who'd stood by its side today. What mattered was the slowly setting sun. The inevitably lessening crowd by the Princess. The guards who were beginning to tire one after the other, to lean on their large weapons.

By nightfall, besides the two exhausted guards who had been left behind, there would not be anyone to notice him walk out of those woods.

He watched the people come and go, less and less as darkness slithered across the village and stars slowly started peeking through the clouds in the night's sky. Waiting for the last men and women to remember they had to wake up early tomorrow, he'd settled in-between the large roots of an oak tree. Rather ironic, he thought, mindlessly reaching for the silver oakleaf hanging on his neck.

Heavens, he had to fight tooth and nail to leave the Corps even for a short trip. _What do you want me to do? What do I do for you to give me a bit of time? It's two weeks, give or take a day or two. If you want me to kneel, Crowley, I will, and I'll drag a saxe knife across your ankles while I'm at it_. In the end, the Commander rolled his eyes at least half a hundred times and gave him a week and a half, claiming he couldn‘t spare more, especially since he did get a young apprentice with a keen smile and a sharp sword dropped on his head for ten days.

"What a bastard," the man muttered silently, his glance following a girl who was clearly a messenger or at least an apprentice as she turned to leave after whispering something to the Princess. Crowley knew it'd take him maybe five days to get to Clonmel, and that was only if the roads were merciful. In his defense, the Corps were not exactly short on matters for every Ranger to deal with.

And he was a Ranger, heart and soul. Wouldn't trade it for a better life if there was a knife at his throat, and there had been a number of times when that'd happened indeed. So for a foreign eye, it would've been strange to see a man of such a profession watching a Princess's funeral.

Although, of course, he'll make it so nobody sees him at all.

Slowly, glittering stars were getting the best of him, ricocheting off the fatigue of a long journey, but he had kept himself awake many times when it seemed impossible. Sufficient rest was probably one of the least known luxuries Rangers gave up. Maybe that's why there were so few to receive a golden leaf alive.

Not comforted by the thought at all, he watched the silhouette of the last villager step away from the Princess's grave, and, finally, he could stand up.

But his step lingered.

**_He knows, but I'd like to remind him of it one more time_ ** **.**

His gaze skittered over the graveyard, making sure there was no one else except the guards who were not facing the coffin, trying to convince him that he was checking for potential eyes for the hundredth time and not putting off the meeting.

What meeting, he found himself wondering. With a corpse? _A meeting with a corpse_ , no wonder people found him unsettling to be around, he thought bitterly, and the reason surfaced on its own, unearthing itself through his skin, forcing an unpleasant feeling down his throat.

Halt turned his eyes away from the sight of the funeral and shut them tightly before making a decision.

It was a decision he thought he'd made before ever leaving his cabin in Redmont, but he may not have thought about it right at all.

When he sees her in her coffin, when he really sees her from close enough to put a hand in her hair, that'll be reality. That'll overshadow all the times she'd smiled at him and all the times she'd cried to him and all the times she'd reminded him that he can trust her with anything and all the times she'd been right about it.

The corpse will overshadow his little sister.

**_I'd like to remind him, and to never let him forget._ **

It'd be so easy now, physically, to turn away and walk. Walk, to find Abelard he'd left a few hundred feet behind, hidden in the same woods he was hiding in the outskirts of. To climb into the saddle and gallop far enough that even if he changed his mind, he wouldn't make it back to the burial in time. It'd be easy to keep her in his memory as this bright little girl who he'd seen for years when they were children, for one day when they were adults and not for a day again, not even once. And, in his mind, she'd stay alive. She'd stay _alive,_ and forever, for as long as he lives.

The hood of his cloak slipped to his shoulders - no, he pulled it off, a sharp gesture, forcing his eyes open, forcing them to look for something underneath the white moonlight.

No, there was no way he'd rob himself of his last chance to see his little sister. There was no way he'd allow himself to live a fantasy as big as this. Halt may be driven by lies - first as an O'Carrick, then as an apprentice of an exile, finally as a Ranger and, at times, still as Arratay; Halt may be driven by lives, but he had never once lied to her. He‘d lie to most – he‘d lie to anyone but his little sister.

And so he jumped down from the high roots and took a step forward, and another, and the third and the fourth until he was by the fence. He'd see her, and, with luck or heavenly intervention, if such a thing existed, she'd see him, too.     

Silently, as befitted a Ranger, he swung himself over the fence and rolled down, one of his arms getting tangled in his cloak. He shook it off and continued onward. The shadows from the many tombstones and the oddly blue shade of light from the sky did well with the gray spots in the cloak. So well, in fact, that, combined with soundless footsteps, he could've just as well been a pebble by the coffin and nobody would've been able to the difference.

Just as he was approaching the site of the funeral, another grave caught his eye, and, honestly, if it weren't for the self-control he had grown into his blood, he would've laughed.

In proud white letters, the writing on the cold stone read _"Halt O'Carrick"._

He took a moment by the grave, thinking at first about how ridiculous it all was - and then that maybe, just maybe, it wasn't all that wrong of them to put it there. It was an empty grave, of course, but hadn't Halt O'Carrick really died all those years ago? Caitlyn told him that when he last saw her. _No, you died. The boy died_. Fleeing the country with a black cut on his shoulder, a nasty wound that still itched in his sleep nearly a decade later. He ended up becoming a spy for a different country, even. As content as he was in his rangerhood, it would've really made his hair stand those few years ago. It was truly the death of a prince, nothing more to be said about it.

Although, that grave would soon be joined by another, and he despised that it would not be an empty one.

He swallowed and finally stopped by his sister's coffin.

**_I love him. I never stopped loving him. I will not stop loving him._ **

Immediately, a cold force knocked the wind out of his lung, replacing it by horrid disbelief and then by the numbness that he fully expected would come. But the fact that he expected it did nothing to make him ready for it.

He laid a hand on the edge of the coffin wall, digging his nails into the wood, nearly leaning on it. At even his modest height, he still towered over her.

It would be strange to say a corpse was beautiful. She was not. She still had the dark hair braided and the lanky hands one over another, but she was not herself without the glimmering eyes and a questioning smile. She was dead, and now there was no changing it.

He didn't force himself to look away from her. Maybe he could've. But it was their last time, even though he was the only one there.

She was _not_ there _._

That was what shook him, not the paling skin, not the stiff muscle, not the emotionless face, even. The simple truth that she was not there anymore, not with any of them. Not Ferris, not him, not any of them, not ever again.

"Hey, Cat," Halt called silently, his voice barely rising above a whisper. It was good - it was a guarantee it wouldn't break. And nobody would hear him, that too. For sure.

Of course, no answer came. It did last time. Not today, though. Not ever.

"Cat," he called again, even softer. Reached out - his fingers were only shaking for a brief second - and ran his hand down her braid.

Then, near instantly, he moved back up, letting go of the coffin edge. He glanced over his shoulder. The guards seemed oblivious. For a second, a bitter taste rose in his throat - it wasn't anger if he'd ever felt it, but it damn well resembled it. _What kind of-- Why have guards at all if they're not going to protect her?_

And, consequently, his heart sank a bit again. _There's no need to protect a corpse, though, is there?_

He stood for a moment, giving them both some time. And, although he was never going to see her again, he felt as though he had seen her for a long time as it was, and their last meeting was a sufficient goodbye. He had gotten to see her grow up, he had gotten to talk to her and to laugh with her when laughter still came to him as easily as breathing. He got to see her live, and, one day, it had to be enough. There was no reason he couldn't make that day come today.

As the wind tousled the blue dress, the night suddenly felt a bit more peaceful.

Maybe it was because he was sure her face was etched into his head as it was. Maybe it was because it did not take him that long to make his peace with the memories he already had. Maybe because he found out that the corpse wouldn‘t change his little sister after all.

He looked over her for the last time, reaching for something from underneath his cloak.

**_Let my love sing to the whole world. Don't any of you forget it._ **

A guard jumped at the sound of rustling grass behind him. He snapped his head at the source of what was undeniably footsteps, but it was already long gone. Only the coffin stood, the woman inside just as still as she was before. He squinted at her, but there did not seem to be any movement.

He was not particularly superstitious, most guards weren't, but he trusted his own ears. And he trusted his older companion's mildly curious glance, too. Together, they slowly approached the coffin.

The younger guard's hand shot up to cover his mouth subconsciously, while the other let out a whistle of surprise through his teeth. The Princess seemed not to have moved.

However, on her forehead, on glistening dark hair and above eyes that were now closed forever, a thin string of flowers rested, their stems braided, framing her face like a loose Hibernian crown – except woven from blooming flowers.

"What on earth--" The guard started, and the older waved it off, still eyeing the crown. _Remarkable for a person to sneak past just to decorate the deceased_ , he thought, leading his companion back to their spots. _Must've been some effort._

"Leave it be," he said, glancing over his shoulder at the Princess. At the flowers that seemed to be growing straight out of her bed. "It's her last day, anyway."

**_Don't any of you forget me._ **

Underneath the dim moonlight, Caitlyn O'Carrick was at peace - and, had someone walked past the dark coffin at exactly the right moment, they would've sworn that she was smiling like a child having a good dream in her sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> 🎵 i'll send a whole fucking funeral service to remind you of my love 🎵🎵
> 
> ok i'm sorry. really. look i love majorly screwing the o'carricks over.
> 
> thank you very much for reading my short and humble fic trio!! if i write more caitlyn again sometime, it'll probably be disconnected from this little collection. your encouragement means a whole lot to me and is one of the biggest reasons i actually managed to finish something i really enjoyed!! <3


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